Or better yet, on the most pleasant surprise of the last four weeks.

Trang, our first stop on our tour of the Andaman isles, is a delightful slice of Thai bohemia.

But it begins in Hat Yai, our first post Malaysian-Thai border stop where we meet our connecting minivan to Trang. Many meetings at once, in fact: we also meet Declan, the Aussie we met just a few days back in the Cameron Highlands, who happens to be the only other farang waiting to board the Trang express. We pegged the odds of running into him again, quite scientifically by each throwing out a random percentage that seemed about right until Maya and I meet in the middle, at 6%.

We chat briefly with Declan, who like many travelers just needed to get away from it all so that he could figure out what to do when he has to go back. He started studying multimedia, quit, and will likely reboot as an engineer. He tells a story about his dad, a lawyer, and how after three years at his firm he told them “that's it, I'm done, going traveling”, to which his firm countered “ok, sounds good, when you come back we can just make you a partner.” I guess it was some sort of 1980s, Sydney borne, Jedi mind trick. Declan's dad, since you are surely going to read this, please, teach me.

Bumping into Trang, my legs contorted like Yoda on the elevated back seat, never mind how Declan fit in there, being at least 6'3, we pour out of the van into the midday scorch. (Hours earlier I remarked on how much cooler it was in Thailand, ignoring Maya's counter that it was only 7am at the time.) We ramble over to PJ's guesthouse, where an extra $1.50 gets us the room with a huge window overlooking Trang's main drag, a vanity, and Burberry patterned sheets.

My many threats of a nap the moment we arrive never follow through thanks to a good shower and hardy appetite. Trang's main street looks like an elongated McGill College, Thai style. By Thai Style, I mean zealous motorbikes, narrow sidewalks, tropical plants and trees instead of pine needles on the median, and food stands hawking cheap coconut milk specialties and cavernous dry markets hidden down most alleys.

Trang's (pronounced Trung – ask the driver three times to take you to Traing, see how far that gets you) bohemia seeps out of its night markets. 5 minutes from PJ's, just past the clock tower, turn left, and be rewarded with a saturation of sights, sounds and smells: food stalls with everything from overwhelming buffets of red, yellow and green curries, sushi, lightly battered sweet potato, fresh fish, milkshakes that you can build from scratch with countless ingredients (a subtle reminder of home!), fruits, candies, endless noodles and rices, and countless other pots, pans and skillets that contain indescribables and many untryables and several come-on-just-try-it ables. Clothing stands that, unlike west coast Malaysia, all seem to be selling different things, from neon jean shorts to conservatively colored blue jean shirts to dresses to blouses to…believe me I watch Maya try on a whole whack of stuff. A fake watch and sunglasses stand, which we browse, then gently peruse, then, on the third pass, outright sample from as I come within 100 Baht of buying the watch with a bit too much fake gold and a Gangnam style caricature on the plastic cum leather strap. It seems like the whole town descends on this controlled chaos, and simply reveling in the heterogeneity of the Thai faces proves to be a sublime treat.

Not to be outdone by the night market, the night bazaar – who knows if it happens everyday or that we just lucked out – boasts a more mellow vibe. Along with the usual dessert stands – Thai pancakes, sweets, and the build your own milkshakes – this market has a ton of vintage clothing stalls selling 80s baseball caps, 70s dress shirts, 90s jeans, and at least one trendy white shirt with zebras and hearts that Maya is currently wearing as she plows through a New York Times Notable Bestseller about murder in an American frontier town in the mid 19th century. At the far corner of the esplanade, a mic is set up, and two troubadours fingerpicking versions of American roots rock, until the young boy sitting next to us with his family decides that he's had enough, relieves the troubadours and fingerpicks his own same-same tunes to the crowd.

So we snag a great table at the makeshift cafe and sip tea or coffee or sugar water or, well, whatever it was we couldn't have been drinking it right, but the mood, vibe, aura, everything, existed in such sharp contrast to George Town that that Trang moment will surely live on as a flashbulb in my mind.